November 15, 2014

Winter has come!

This week we got lots of snow, which was a really nice change...for awhile. Note the snow on the picnic bench and barbeque--roughly NINE inches. You can see the leaves are still on many of our trees--the temperature was in the 70's just last week.

Bryna (yes, our new puppy finally has a name!) enjoys the snow, but not the cold weather so much--it's currently 14 degrees, and going to go lower tonight. We took this photo after our walk in the snow today. She's growing so fast. When we brought her home about a month ago, she was almost 6 lbs. Yesterday at the vet, she was 20 lbs. Seems she takes after me!

In between shoveling snow, walking with Bryna, and watching Bryna, I've managed to finish a couple things. After working on it a couple of years--seems like forever--I finally finished the bottom panel of the Roseville Album.

The trees seemed to take forever. I wish I had used a darker fabric for the one on the left, but it is done and done is good! Strangely enough, the darker tree stitched so much easier than the lighter one, and I really do like the fabric and the way it looks for the tree. But it did cause one near crisis.

Somehow the panel got damp (maybe from sitting near a condensing glass of ice water), and the fabric in the tree on the right side bled onto the background about an inch out throughout the tree area. This happened at the point when the panel was 90% done, just a few circles and birds to go. I just about had a heart attack seeing that.

This is the fabric--it's a Brandon Mably called Green Clover Dots (I think). Since I prewash everything, it wasn't a good surprise. Luckily, when I soaked the panel, it all washed out. But, I would recommend you prewash that fabric if you have it--mine is going to get prewashed an extra time!

And, tonight my husband watched Bryna, my daughter was gone, and I got to sew uninterrupted (pure heaven). I was able to do the finishing machine applique on Quilt Doodle Doodle's BOM for October. I had finished stitching the pieces last month, but forgot about the light's string. Since then, I've been mulling over how I wanted to add it.

I had thought about embroidering it on, but I really wanted it to show up against the blue, so I went with a narrow bias strip instead, using a narrow black and white stripe that I had left from another quilt's binding. (Cut just slightly over 1/4 inch)

That's likely all I will get finished for awhile. My daughter is home for 3 more weeks--such a rare treat, I want to enjoy every moment I can with her! (When I can pry her away from Bryna that is--they've been having a grand time together--I'm going to have to be sure she doesn't pack her up in her suitcase!)

Happy stitching--and Happy Thanksgiving if I don't post again before then!

OOOHh a cute puppy , it's a wonder that you get any stitching done, I can imagine a tug of war happening with your applique blocks. Does the name Bryna having a meaning? it's not a name I've heard before. Using piping for the lights string is a clever soloution.